A California man who had a guillotine in the bed of his pickup truck was arrested outside the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday afternoon, police said.

Philan-Tam-Duy Le, 35, had parked the truck illegally and was arrested for carrying a dangerous weapon, U.S. Capitol Police said in a news release.

Congress is in recess, and most, if not all, lawmakers were not in the building. The Supreme Court and the Library of Congress are also in the area where Le’s vehicle was located.

Police said they are investigating why Le drove from California to Washington with the device. His brother, Kevin Le, told The Los Angeles Times that he was unhappy with both Republican and Democratic lawmakers but that he probably would not have hurt anyone.

Threats of violence against political and government figures have soared in recent years. According to data collected by Capitol Police, officials investigated nearly 15,000 threats against members of Congress, their families and staff in 2025 — the most cases since 2020.

A June report from the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate found that violent threats against members of Congress on Facebook quadrupled after the platform eliminated content moderation safeguards in January 2025.

Last month, Supreme Court justices testified before the House and Senate appropriations committees, urging lawmakers to approve the court’s budget request to bolster the justices’ personal security. The justices said that the threats against them have escalated significantly since the 2022 ruling that struck down the constitutional right to abortion.

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